Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi addressed his party faithful Saturday in a video recorded at the Milan hospital where he’s been receiving treatment since early April — railing against Communism and comparing his party to a religion.
(Bloomberg) — Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi addressed his party faithful Saturday in a video recorded at the Milan hospital where he’s been receiving treatment since early April — railing against Communism and comparing his party to a religion.
“I’m here for you, for the first time in a shirt and jacket after over a month,” the 86-year-old billionaire said in a sometimes slurred and halting speech that lasted about 20 minutes.
See video here.
The video, piped into a convention of his Forza Italia party, showed Berlusconi sitting at what looked like a desk in front of a blue backdrop, with Italian and European Union flags on one side, and a poster for his party on the other.
“Forza Italia is like a lay religion for me,” he said of the political movement he founded three decades ago. “Italians will consider us their lay saints, the saints of their freedom and well-being,” he added, according to the Ansa news service.
The media tycoon and four-time premier was hospitalized for a pulmonary infection brought on by chronic leukemia, a condition that had not previously been disclosed. He spent the first 12 days in intensive care, before being moved to standard care on April 16.
Forza Italia is a junior partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition.
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